Archive: Around Town

Mardi gras on the Cayuga Wine Trail fell on Valentines' weekend this year and, with the holiday on Monday for a lot of people, the wineries that are the starting points for the tour of all 16 were swamped the first few hours. We started at Six Mile Creek in Ithaca but quickly decided to take the back route and go up the east side of the lake to King Ferry and Long Point Wineries to avoid the tour buses. We were rewarded with a visit with Malvie and Chris at Trelaven in their elaborately decorated tasting room while Jim sipped the new Reserve Cabernet Franc.(He thoroughly enjoys "oaky, very dry" wines so that just hit the spot).

We found some great deals at Long Point and Swedish Hill along with compliments on our costumes from everyone who stopped us to have their photo taken with "The King" especially. We came down the west side to Buttonwood for one of Mary's favorites, "Blackberry Briar", to find Ken in his multicolored feather Mardi gras wig. By the time we finished chatting there we had to hurry for the competition at Americana and dinner at the Crystal Lake Caf Mary made mostly new costumes for the annual King and Queen of the wine trail competition for both of them this year, though Jim found that his green "Father Christmas" robe worked well over his purple tunic with the purple velvet cloak to coordinate with Mary's outfit. Our friend and neighbor, Patti Brown made us the crowns last year for Valentines' Day. In past years competitors had to visit all 16 wineries in 2 days to accumulate points for the $400-$500 worth of prizes and the honor of being the royal couple for a year, but this year the judging was all done on Saturday night at Americana Winery. We were able to visit longer at our favorites and skip some if we ran out of time, but we only missed Goosewatch and Cobblestone Winery.

We didn't win by the way, but we had a great time with wonderful food samples and recipes to take home at every stop in a Creole theme. There were drawings for prizes and beads at each stop as well. Unfortunately, besides the reigning King and Queen and our selves, there were only 6 other couples competing out of the somewhere over 1000 people on the trail for the event. We had several discussions with the owners at our favorite wineries about how to be more inclusive of single people and non traditional couples so that more people will compete and they were all very receptive. Dress up, get in the spirit and come out next year, it's great fun, and they have special prices and beverages for designated drivers.

We will have more on the wineries on the west side of the lake and our Valentines' Day adventures in next weeks' article but, it was a long slow ride home from Albany tonight; 4 1/2 hours for what usually takes just over 3. We saw 5 cars off the road on Rt. 88 and a couple more between Whitney Point and Lansing. The dumbest driving move we saw was about 2 miles east of Midline Rd. on 79 as two cars tandem passed two other cars in front of us on a wide, but greasy stretch. It was slush covered and freezing enough that we were doing about 20pmh less than the speed limit with studded snow tires on an all wheel drive car. Jim grew up in Buffalo and Mary learned to drive from her school bus driver dad in New Hampshire so we are experienced enough not to take chances. Sure enough, a mile ahead and around the curve, as we slowed down for the gas station and convenience store before our turn, the cars had involved themselves and others in what looked like a 4-5 car fender bender. Fortunately, it looked fairly minor and people were already on the scene so we threaded our way through slowly.

Winter isn't over yet. Please slow down folks, especially if you are not experienced snow drivers. If you do have experience and a properly equipped vehicle, have patience and leave extra room for those who don't. We would love to meet you out and about, but not at the other side of our bumpers please.

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